Monday, June 5, 2006

Free-For-All-2008: Does Exposure Mean Anything?

Wanted: A volunteer to execute the Chatter Rankings next month. You don't have to do any of the write-up stuff, but it would be very helpful to have data from mid-July. Email me if you're interested.

This month's Chatter Rankings come early, since I'm leaving the land of the internet shortly, and wanted to get one more edition in. Consequently, there's a high degree of intertemporal collinearity, since Google News lists articles from the past five weeks. Thus, we see much less change than in any previous ranking. There are, however, some big movers:

Jeb Bush is suddenly being given consideration by the media. He won the "Best Governor" honor from his peers, and was lauded by his brother as someone who would make a good president. He has, however, said he won't run in 2008. 2012, then?

Al Gore has emerged as the darling of the left, something he never enjoyed during his first run. He's now as sexy as Cannes can make a politician

The Democrats are undergoing a groundswell of anti-Hillary feeling. Not only is the left half of the party unhappy with her, but more and more party Democrats think she can't win. One article highlights Florida poll data that suggests she has no advantage over Gore (the 2000 edition) or Kerry (2004).

So there are two opposite phenomena at work: Hillary could be losing out because of her early exposure and constant scrutiny of her, but Gore could be gaining from his new movie career. Hopefully, the continued Chatter Rankings will not only show us the levels of month-to-month publicity, but also open a window on how successful candidates gain their exposure.

Notes: The Chatter Rankings are created by searching each candidate's name plus "2008" in the Google News database.
This month's tested-but-not-qualifying list is Rep. John Murtha, Gov. Brian Schweitzer, and Haley Barbour. Some of the men on the list almost surely won't run for president (Reid, Dean) and are there just in case, or as an indication of VP popularity.